On Tuesday, he was detained trying to fly out of McAllen and was held at the McAllen Border Patrol Station, according to Lara Drasin, a representative for the group Define American. Hours later, he was released.

“As an unaccompanied child migrant myself, I came to McAllen, Texas, to shed a light on children who parts of America and many in the news media are actively turning their backs on. But what I saw was the generosity of the American people, documented and undocumented, in the Rio Grande Valley," he said in a statement sent to Mashable.

"I’ve been released by Border Patrol," he added.

"I want to thank everyone who stands by me and the undocumented immigrants of south Texas and across the country. Our daily lives are filled with fear in simple acts such as getting on an airplane to go home to our family. With Congress failing to act on immigration reform, and President Obama weighing his options on executive action, the critical question remains: how do we define American?"

Vargas is a founder and board member of Define American, which he helped start in April 2011 with a mission to shift the conversation around citizenship. He had traveled to McAllen to document the crisis at the United States' southern border, working with the group United We Dream, which supports young immigrants.

“It became apparent during our time here, in this border town, that the founder of our organization, Jose Antonio Vargas may not be able to leave McAllen — a situation shared by thousands of undocumented Americans who are “stuck” at the border, which for them is a daily struggle,” Define American Campaign Director Ryan Eller said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

“This morning, Mr. Vargas attempted to board a plane to Los Angeles where we are scheduled to screen our film 'Documented.' Mr. Vargas did not make it through security at the airport,” Eller said earlier on Tuesday.

How'd it happen?

Vargas was in the Rio Grande Valley, where he was reporting on the immigration crisis at the border.

Once he arrived, however, Vargas realized it would be impossible to leave the area unquestioned. There are at least four borders in McAllen — Mexico, the ocean and two border checkpoints to the north. One of them is Falfurrias Station, a three-lane traffic check point that’s known as a leader in seizures of both undocumented immigrants and narcotics.

Vargas wouldn't have stood a chance.

“People cannot travel out of these four borders and we are stuck. You cannot take a bus. You cannot take a plane,” an unnamed spokesman said on the group's live stream an hour after Vargas' arrest. “Jose has just proved this.”

Vargas knew he was stuck. He wrote about it for Politico Magazine on Friday:

I write this from the city of McAllen, which sits in the Rio Grande Valley near the border, just across from the Mexican city of Reynosa. In the last 24 hours I realize that, for an undocumented immigrant like me, getting out of a border town in Texas—by plane or by land—won’t be easy. It might, in fact, be impossible.

I flew into the valley Thursday morning to visit a shelter for unaccompanied Central American refugees and participate in a vigil in their honor. Outraged at the media coverage of this humanitarian crisis (these children are not “illegal,” as news organizations like CBS News and the New York Times call them), and frustrated by the political ping-pong centered on border security and increased enforcement, I also came here to share my own story of coming to the United States as an unaccompanied minor from the Philippines. I wanted to help change the narrative of the conversation and, with a camera crew, share stories from the shelter and its volunteers. The visit to the shelter was intense and sobering, watching small kids fight for their lives with nothing more than their spirits.

When my friend Mony Ruiz-Velasco, an immigration lawyer who used to work in the area, saw on my Facebook page that I was in McAllen, she texted me: “I am so glad you are visiting the kids near the border. But how will you get through the checkpoint on your way back?” A curious question, I thought, and one I dismissed. I’ve visited the border before, in California. What checkpoint? What was she talking about?

Before heading through security, Vargas sent one of two final tweets: “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said in the first.

For his supporters, it was showtime. A group organizer told assembled activists on Tuesday, “We need to stand up for Jose. He became one of us. This is now his reality and the reality that we’ve lived for many years. So let's send a message to the nation that it’s time. The time is now.”

Define America on Tuesday launched a petition asking supporters to “Stand with Jose and the #BorderChildren today.” The group is now calling on President Obama and Homeland Secretary Jeh Johnson to release the journalist and activist.

"We are calling on President Obama and Secretary Johnson to exercise prosecutorial discretion and immediately release Jose Antonio Vargas from Customs and Border Protection custody," Define American's Eller said in a statement sent to Mashable before Vargas was released.

The group also sent a statement that Jose Antonio Vargas had prepared in the event of his detention. "Our America is better than this," Vargas said. "We're more humane. More compassionate. And we are fighting for a better America."

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